


Harry Potter and the real Nocturne Alley

by DreamSmithAJK



Category: Angel: the Series, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Character Development, Diagon Alley, Exploration, Fantasy, Gen, Sad and Beautiful, Young Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamSmithAJK/pseuds/DreamSmithAJK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the beginning of Chamber of Secrets, and Harry is about to learn that nothing is ever exactly what it seems.  Not Nocturne Alley, and definitely not the strange, beautiful woman named Eve....</p><p>A/N:  This is told entirely from Harry's POV, so if you're not familiar with AtS it won't slow you down at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: There's this chapter early on in Chamber of Secrets, where Harry makes a wrong turn in the Floo network, ends up in the dark magic shoppe, overhears Lucius and Draco Malfoy talking to the shopkeeper while he hides in the conviently placed (and empty) cabinet... remember?  
> Okay, take all that as given, and let's pick up the action as Harry dashes from the shop.  
> Right?  
> Right.  
> Okay... go.

Muttering darkly, Mr. Borgin disappeared into a back room. Harry waited for a minute in case he came back, then, quietly as he could, slipped out of the cabinet, past the glass cases, and out of the shop door.   
  
Harry's glasses had been broken during his rough and tumble arrival via the hearth, so he clutched them in one hand as he squinted and peered all around, trying to orient himself. This place was definitely  _not_  Diagon Alley, though it wasn't any sort of muggle street, either. The dingy, narrow passage was barely wide enough for a single small car to manage, if there had been any cars around that cared to try.  
  
There weren't.  
  
Instead, the filthy cobbles were tread by a few scattered pedestrians, all of whom seemed just as shabby as the run-down buildings fronting the street. Across the way was a dirt-filmed window that held a display of shrunken heads, and a hand-lettered sign a bit further down boasted of the shop's wide selection of 'Tame Vermin most insidious'.   
  
Harry shuddered, but had no other choice, unless he wanted to turn around and re-enter Borgin and Burkes, which he most certainly did not. Bracing himself, he stepped into the street, chose a direction at random (left, as it so happened), and started walking. His hope was that his misadventure with the floo network hadn't landed him  _too_  far distant from where he'd meant to go, and that he could quickly find his way there. A dilapidated sign hanging from a street lamp proclaimed this to be 'Knock Turn Alley', which was of no help at all since he'd never heard of such a place. He kept going, trying hard not to show his nervousness.  
  
His determination to appear brave, however, lasted less than a minute, for he was quickly accosted by one of the street's ragged denizens.  
  
"Not lost, are you my dear?" asked the bent and infirm-looking witch who hobbled over to block his path. Her tattered hat obscured most of her face, though Harry saw enough to know that she was old, missing most of her teeth, and seemed to have eyes that were very mismatched in size.  
  
"Care for a little something?" she continued, when he proved unable to find any words with which to respond. Raising the tray she held before her, she offered him tiny bowls of what appeared to be human fingernails--whole ones, not clippings. Her leer, combined with her 'wares', combined to send him stumbling backwards in dismay, and he stared all around in fuzzy-sighted panic, searching for some path of escape.  
  
"All right, Shar; that's enough," someone said, virtually in Harry's ear. He whirled violently, afraid that someone even uglier and more terrifying had managed to sneak up on him.  
  
That wasn't the case at all, at least, not the part about being ugly and terrifying.   
  
The newcomer was a young woman, probably in her early twenties, and even without his glasses Harry could plainly see that she was very pretty, even beautiful. Her hair was of a darkly reddish hue, fell to the middle of her back, and looked both stylish and silky-soft. She wore a largish amount of perfectly-applied makeup, which combined with her well-coiffed hair to give her a glossy, magazine-model sort of beauty. Her attractiveness was almost as intimidating to the boy as the hag's ugliness had been, if in a completely different sort of way.   
  
Harry gaped at her, and she smiled down at him somewhat condescending fashion, though not unkindly for all that.  
  
"Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked him, laying one flawlessly-manicured hand on his arm as she did so. Smiling, the woman nodded past at the old witch, who was now looking somewhat abashed. "Shareena, here, has a little too much fun, sometimes, with her scary old lady act. It does help keep the brightsiders out where they belong, though."  
  
His heart still beating rapidly, Harry gave the hag another look, squinting even harder to be sure he wasn't seeing things. 'Shareena', the newcomer had called her, which didn't seem like a proper name for an ugly hag, somehow, and indeed, his second look showed that she wasn't quite what she had first appeared to be. Setting her tray aside (where it hovered, quite steadily, in midair), she pulled her tattered hat from her head. Instantly there was a shimmer, and her features blurred and reformed, as though several thick panes of cloudy glass were being pulled away, one after the other. Her eyes shifted, one growing larger and the other shrinking until they were both exactly the same size, and instead of a muddy brown color they were now dark blue. Her skin lost its pocked, diseased look, smoothing until it was a perfectly nice (if slightly freckled) sun-kissed bronze. Her hair, too, grew thicker, smoother, and longer, until it was a brown/bronze/blonde-streaked mane that reminded Harry of the American television show with the improbably-attractive female lifeguards that his cousin Dudley enjoyed so much.   
  
Her transformation complete, Shareena stood revealed to be less than half the age he'd first thought, and actually quite attractive. She grinned at him, punched him lightly on one shoulder, and shrugged.  
  
"Sorry about that, kiddo," she said, her voice not nearly so screechy and frightening now that she wasn't acting the crone. "Didn't mean to make you pee yourself or anything, but the look on your face--! She was very obviously trying not to laugh aloud, and Harry wasn't especially keen to be the butt of more jokes; not when every summer was spent enduring the mocking and taunts dished out by the Dursley family.   
  
The second woman had been watching him closely all this time, and she seemed to sense his sullen anger, because she put her arm across his shoulders and turned him gently away.  
  
"It's not her fault, really," she told him softly as she led the way further down the street. "Her and some of the others are paid to hang around here and act scary and crazy; it keeps out people who don't have any business being here."  
  
A last look behind them showed Shareena stretching her arms up and twisting from side to side in an effort to relieve a stiff back. Then, with a look of obvious reluctance, she tugged her ragged hat back down on top of her head. Her pleasant features blurred and shifted once more, and she bent over to shuffle off with her tray of fingernails (which had obligingly floated back into her hands at her gesture).  
  
Harry's eyes were beginning to ache from all the squinting he was doing, and he rubbed at them before looking up at the woman.  
  
"You said that before," he said, unsure of how to feel towards the stranger. On the one hand, she had stepped in just as he had been about to flee, screaming. On the other hand, he had no idea who she was, or why she had taken this sudden interest in him. Accordingly, he decided to try and brazen his way through. "You said that before," he repeated. "Something about keeping people out, out where they belong. What does that mean?"  
  
The glossy-beautiful maybe-model beside him smiled (very prettily, yet also somewhat smugly and disdainfully).  
  
"It means keeping the oh-so-pure goody-good locals away from anything that might confuse or upset them," she said, with a tiny trace of a sneer in her otherwise bright and friendly voice. "This world is divided up into mundanes and magicals, right?" She looked down at Harry, and when he nodded acknowledgement she nodded too. "Well, that's not the only dividing line. There's also a... I suppose 'stigma' is the best word to describe it, a stigma attached to a large percentage of the magicals here. The brightsiders don't like what the others do, and they don't like how they do it, either, but there's too many of us here in the shadows for them to do much about it. So they pretend we're not worth noticing--that we're all crazed, or poor, or twisted and ugly," she waved a delicate hand back towards the play-actors behind them. "If that's all they see, then it's much easier for them to ignore us, and to be perfectly honest, we're happy if they just stay out of our way and let us get on with our lives."  
  
Harry frowned, trying to follow all of that while simultaneously keep an eye on their surroundings. As they walked, the street had been slowly widening, while the buildings on either side grew both cleaner and more solidly-built.  
  
"So...." he murmured, almost to himself. "You mean... these are the people who wanted Voldemort to rule everything?"  
  
The woman gave him a sideways look at the mention of that name, though she didn't flinch.  
  
"Not exactly," she said. "What you'll see here are the people who aren't afraid to say that name, and they're the ones who aren't afraid to admit that he's trying for a comeback... which is more than you can say about all those idiots over on the sunny side of the street."  
  
Speaking of streets, Harry saw that the one they were following made an abrupt left-hand turn just ahead. Also, somehow, it was getting on towards evening in a very strange way, despite the fact that it couldn't be later than nine in the morning. At the turning ahead the lamps atop the widely-spaced poles were already burning with pale mage-fire, illuminating the street in which dusk was starting to settle. Turning about, he saw that the way behind them was still brightly lit, though this end was noticeably dimmer than the section at the limit of his blurred vision. With a fresh feeling of unease and confusion he looked up, and saw another street sign posted at the turning. This one read 'Nocturne Way', which he assumed was some misspelling of 'Knock Turn', which was of course the proper name. The woman followed the direction of his gaze and gave him another of those unsettlingly-attractive smiles.  
  
"Do you know what 'Nocturne' means? No?" Linking her arm through his, she led him to the turning. "A nocturne is a piece of music; music that sweeps you off into the night when you listen, to where all the mysterious, magical, beautiful things are just waiting for you to discover them."  
  
At the turning of the way, Harry froze in place, and fumbled for the broken halves of his glasses. Holding them up so that he could see through them, he saw that the street wound its way up a steep slope that could never be mistaken for any part of London. This was clearly Somewhere Else, and what he saw stunned him. The darkness of the sky wasn't absolute; this wasn't full night, as he'd feared it would be. Rather, twilight held dominion over the wide, clear sweep of cobblestones, with deep scarlet and purple tones glowing over the rooftops. The magical lamps kept the street lit well enough, though pools of darker shadow lingered in some doorways and in the mouths of smallish alleys here and there. The fronts of the buildings were lit with magical lights also, in every color of the spectrum and a few more besides, and bustling among them were figures that were literally beyond his comprehension.  
  
His mouth agape, Harry looked up at the woman who had brought him there. Her eyes sparkling, she laughed aloud, and he dazedly realized that even the sound of her laughter was glossy and perfect.  
  
"Oh, honey," she said, smiling down at him. "I thought this was going to be just one more annoying business trip." Tousling his hair affectionately, she tugged him forward. "Come on, let me show you around."  
  
Harry dug in his heels, a little belatedly, true, yet a little caution coming late was surely better than none at all.  
  
"I shouldn't," he told her, fumbling his broken glasses back into his pocket before he lost them. "I'm here to buy my school supplies." At her level, green-eyed stare he flushed, and fought not to stammer. "I mean, I was supposed to be going to Diagon Alley, to buy things for school, only I didn't know how to use the floo, and I ended up--"  
  
"--In Borgin and Burkes," she finished for him, nodding agreeably. "Yes, I saw you the moment you walked out the door." Bending down far enough to put her face level with his, she stared deeply into his eyes. Harry couldn't help noticing that whatever she wore on her lips did more than color them a deep red, it also gave them a moist, pearly luster utterly unlike any other lips he'd ever seen... not that he'd ever paid that much attention to a person's lips before....  
  
"I'm, ah, on-only twelve years old," he managed, losing his struggle not to stammer, and blushing even more intensely. The woman smiled faintly.  
  
"I can see that." Her eyes were looking at him, looking  _through_  him, and he wondered what else she saw. "You  _are_  a little young for me," she admitted a moment later. "And I'm quite a bit older than I look, believe me. Still," she tilted her head fractionally sideways, as if to let her peer into another, more obscure portion of his insides. "I'm a very, very patient lady, so I'd be willing to wait, if something were worth waiting for...." Harry blinked, unsure of how to interpret that, and she smiled more widely, showing predictably perfect, very white teeth.  
  
"The thing is, I'm here by myself this time around, and I could use some company." Seeing his distress, she gave his cheek a light caress with the long, flawless nails of one hand. "Don't worry, it won't take long. I'll take you back to Diagon when we're done. And in the meantime, I can guarantee that you'll see some very interesting things, the sort of things that most people from your side never see." Turning slightly, gesturing gracefully at the street that stretched off into the impossible twilight she arched one delicate brow at him. "Aren't you even a little curious to see what's really here, just around the corner from what you know?"  
  
Harry swallowed painfully, looked behind him, then squinted at the way that lay ahead. Even blurred, it called to him. Diagon Alley was wondrous enough; how much more was waiting to be discovered here, in this place that no one had ever even mentioned to him? Looking up at the strange, beautiful woman, he finally nodded.  
  
"All right, I'll come," he said, forcing himself to speak clearly, past the lump of unease still perched in his throat. "So long as I'm back in an hour or two, the Weasleys won't have time to be too worried about me."  
  
Her soft laughter rang out again, like silvery bells that someone had polished and polished until they glittered cold and lovely.  
  
"Oooh, I  _love_  it when someone gives in to temptation like that," she told him, even as she took his arm again and started them forward into the throng. "If I had an apple handy I'd give it to you; it's sort of traditional." At his blank look she shook her head and smiled mysteriously. "Never mind; I'll get you one later. In the meantime, I have to pick up some things, and then we can do a little sightseeing." Something seemed to occur to her, and she nudged him lightly in the ribs with her elbow. "By the way, handsome, you haven't told me your name."  
  
He probably should have made something up, or used someone else's, like Ron, or Neville. That would have been the clever thing, when being asked by someone he didn't know, and didn't particularly trust. Strangely, though, her voice seemed to bypass all the clever, suspicious parts of his brain, and end up right in the center of the part that had no guile whatsoever.  
  
"My name's Harry," he said, though he did at least manage not to spill the 'Potter'. She nodded, and took a deep breath after he said it, as if she were breathing his identity in along with the air. Apparently the scent of his name met with her approval, as she flashed him a brilliant smile in return.  
  
"Nice to meet you, Harry. You can call me Eve."  
  
"Eve," he repeated, fitting the name to the rest of the woman. It seemed to suit her. They moved down the street, arm in arm.  
  
It was several long minutes before he made the connection between her name and what she'd said about an apple, but by then the wonders she was pointing out in the first of the shops swept away any of the unease he would otherwise have felt.  
  
  
* * * * *


	2. Chapter Two

"--Can't believe they actually let you kids fly around on those brooms,"   
Eve was saying as they walked through the shop that specialized in flying devices. "As hung up on safety as people are these days, with airbags and seatbelts and all of that, and then they perch you on top of a stick and let you fly hundreds of feet in the air with nothing holding you on at all?"  
  
Harry shrugged.  
  
"The magical people don't seem to worry about that as much as the rest of the world," he admitted, gazing curiously at a brightly colored flying carpet that was drifting about up near the ceiling of the shop. "I suppose it's something to do with having magical healing; people get broken bones all the time playing quiddich, but it only takes a few minutes to have it put right."  
  
Eve gave a very ladylike little huff, unimpressed by that take on things.  
  
"I'm sure that's great, unless your neck is the bone that gets broken."  
  
Harry started to answer, stopped dead in his tracks for several long seconds, then hurried over to the sales display he'd spotted. "Sky-High-Hikers" proclaimed the banner hanging over the shelves holding the shoes, and the footwear there ranged from sturdy boots to rakish-looking sports shoes. A burly man with a backpack over one shoulder was examining them also, and he nodded amiably at Harry as he looked around with wide eyes.  
  
"They let you walk or run on air," the man told him. "If you're like me, and spend a lot of time in the mountains, it saves a lot of time when you can take shortcuts  _over_  the ravines, instead of having to climb down one side and up the other."  
  
"That's brilliant!" Harry exclaimed, thinking of all the high towers of Hogwarts, and how many windows let on to key locations. With a pair of sky-high-hikers he could get to his classes quicker and more easily (except for potions, of course, since the dungeon had no windows). Even better, if he were to be knocked off his broom during a quiddich game, it would be no problem at all to run back up to it, hop back on, and keep playing! Just imagining the look on the opposing team's faces made him grin. Then his face fell--he'd meant to go to Gringotts that morning to retrieve enough money to buy his school books and supplies, only the Floo mishap had prevented it. All he had with him were a few silver Sickles, not nearly enough cover the price displayed next to the pair Hikers he'd been eyeing.   
  
Crushing disappointment filled him, though a moment later it occurred to him that he might be able to sneak back into Nocturne Alley at some later date and make his purchase. Resolving to remember the location of the shop (which was called 'Flynn's Flying Emporium') he made his way back to the entrance, where Eve was waiting for him.  
  
"Sorry, sweetie," she told him as they walked along the street under the unending magical twilight. "I really do have to see a few people before we do any serious sightseeing."  
  
Harry nodded quickly, anxious to reassure the woman that he understood.  
  
"No, it's fine; thanks for letting me take a look in there. I'm--" He broke off with an embarrassed laugh, then carried on. "I'm sort of keen on flying, is all. Being able to fly my broom at Hogwarts is one of the best things I've ever done. And there are magical animals that fly, too... at least Hagrid says there are. Maybe one day I'll get to fly on one of those!" He was babbling in his excitement, and his embarrassment went up several notches, even though Eve didn't laugh, she only smiled, and nodded slowly.  
  
"I don't doubt that you will, Harry. One day."  
  
Now that they were back on the street, he was once again overwhelmed by the sheer variety of beings thronging the avenue. Witches and Wizards of the same sort as he was used to seeing in Diagon Alley were only a fraction of what he saw here.   
  
There were stern-eyed men clad in armor of chain and plate, bearing swords at their sides and shields slung across their backs. Here and there, too, he saw tall, fierce-looking women kitted out in similar fashion. The two of them passed a small band of what looked like teenagers, all of whom dressed in somber colors and were smoking cigarettes. Harry thought them high-school seniors enjoying the last of their summer holiday, until he chanced to meet the gaze of one as they passed. The weight of immense age lay heavy in that steady stare, and the girl who walked with his arm around her waist gave the startled boy a lazy smile that showed delicate, needle-sharp fangs.   
  
Harry cringed back so quickly that he bumped into Eve, nearly knocking her from her feet. She recovered her footing (with surprising ease, he noted absently, despite her ultra-fashionable high-heels, and the cobblestones that should have made walking in them utterly impossible), and gave him a mock scowl.  
  
"Hey, take it easy."   
  
He was staring after the group of ancient teens, eyes wide.  
  
"Th-those were--"  
  
She followed his pointing finger, gave a small but genuine frown, and pushed his hand back down to his side.  
  
"Vampires. Yep, they sure are." With a reassuring pat on his shoulder she urged him on. "They're generally well behaved when they're here, so don't panic. On the other hand, whenever you see them hanging around, it's probably a good idea not to wander into any dark alleys...." She did a deliberate double-take, smiled down at him, and added: "Actually, come to think of it, it's  _never_ a good idea to wander into a dark alley."   
  
"Too late," Harry grumbled, still feeling a prickle along his neck that might have been caused by a hungry vampire's stare. Unexpectedly, Eve burst into laughter at his words, her nose crinkling slightly as she did so. For just that instant it marred the eerie, somehow unsettling beauty of that face, but at the same time it made her look much more human, too. He smiled back at her, finding that he much preferred the humanity over the perfect, painted mask that was her usual face.  
  
Another few steps brought them to a building that featured a set of wide, high double doors. Harry gasped as one of the armored women he'd seen earlier led her steed out through those doors and into the street. It was a unicorn... or nearly so. At least a foot taller than any horse he'd ever seen, it was powerfully built, and yet unnaturally nimble and graceful. It's hide, mane and long, glossy tail were all colored a silvery violet, with a sheen like that of moonlight rippling across it with every movement. Its hooves gleamed like dark gemstones, and it's eyes were large, forward-facing, and a tawny gold, with vertically-slip pupils like those of a cat. It had three horns, two short ones set high in its forehead, and a longer one in the center. The woman warrior swung herself up astride the beast without benefit of bridle or saddle, and with a liquid-sounding hiss it wheeled and trotted off down the street.  
  
Eve was watching him, amusement quite apparent, so he forced his slack jaw closed and concentrated on  _not_  acting like an awestruck farmer on his first trip to the city.  
  
"I don't have one of those," she told him, "But I do have something stabled here that I need to get. Part of how I make my living is by bringing things in and out of places like this."  
  
Harry, peering curiously into the interior of the stable, turned his head to give her a look.  
  
"'Things'?"  
  
Interestingly, it was Eve's turn to look just the tiniest bit uneasy, though the discomfort he saw was so fleeting that he might well have imagined it.  
  
"Nothing too valuable, or bizarre," she told him with elaborate casualness, examining the polish on her perfect nails as if it were infinitely more interesting than the topic under discussion. "Just things that are easy to get in one place, and hard to get in another. Little things." With a graceful little wave she indicated that he should follow her inside. "I also deliver messages, sometimes, if someone doesn't trust the usual channels."  
  
Harry considered that. Eve, with her perfect hair, flawless makeup, snug, summery blouse and short skirt, didn't exactly fit his mental image of a postman, or especially someone who delivered freight to remote, hard-to-reach locations. On the other hand, with magic many things were possible, so he wasn't prepared to discount what she'd told him out of hand. As he entered the building he took a last look behind him, still not entirely comfortable with the idea that there were genuine living (err, 'unliving') vampires out there. He didn't see anyone sporting obvious fangs amongst the passersby, though he did see a single tall man standing across the way, who was staring directly at him with unnerving intensity. His clothing was hard to see, especially since Harry was still without his glasses, but it seemed to be some sort of lightweight, modern-looking armor, all in greys and blacks. When the man saw Harry looking back at him he turned away and vanished through a doorway. The boy wondered, fleetingly, what that might have been about, before he was distracted by the arrival of the stable manager. He walked in to join Eve as she spoke with him.  
  
"Was he any trouble?", she asked, even as she produced a small pouch from somewhere and began counting out several gold galleons into the man's palm.  
  
"No, no, no trouble at all," he assured her, with only a brief glance over at Harry. He seemed much more interested in the beautiful young woman, not that she was showing any interest in return. With a sigh, he counted through the money she'd given him and led the way to one side of the large room. "Your creature stayed still as a statue, the whole time, just as you promised. A good thing, too, since I'm responsible for these other animals while they're in my care."  
  
The stalls to either side held various riding beasts; mostly horses, though one of those was an exotically-colored beast striped in orange and black, like a tiger. The enclosure the man opened up for Eve, though, held something far different. Harry had thought that he was getting his balance, that his composure wouldn't be so easily shaken after what he'd already seen. Even so, he couldn't help but leap backwards with a gasp when the open stall was shown to contain a gigantic spider, with a body fully as large as... as....  
  
He didn't know  _what_  it was as big as; he was too busy trying to hold perfectly still so that it wouldn't decide to eat him. The stable manager let out a loud guffaw, and even Eve snickered softly, though she tried to cover it with a soft hand held before her mouth.  
  
"It's not bloody funny!" he told them, his voice shaking with both fear and anger. "That's a gi-normous spider sitting there!"  
  
Since the spider wasn't making any move to try to eat him, or any move at all, for that matter, he had time to decide what it was as big as.   
  
"It's as big as Hagrid!" he said, and immediately felt a bit better, as if the very act of defining that aspect of the creature had helped him deal with its proximity. And truthfully, its body was nearly as large as the Hogwart's gamekeeper. It was in every way a spider; multiple gleaming eyes, bulbous, hideous body, and eight long, jointed legs that likely covered a space fifteen feet across when they were fully unfolded. Oddly, however, it wasn't at all furry, or fuzzy, as he'd imagined a largish spider would be. Also, it... gleamed? The body, and the legs, seemed to be made of softly shining plates, all fitted together so smoothly that there was hardly a seam visible... and yet there the seams were, if he squinted just right. The eyes, large and staring, were crystalline, some green and a few orange, and their glassy stare didn't really seem like that of a living creature at all.   
  
In fact, the longer he looked, the more he became convinced that it was a statue, perhaps put there as some sort of cruel joke. He gathered his anger and indignation, and gathered himself to say as much to the manager (he was extremely reluctant to speak harshly to Eve; twelve years old or no, he was still a male, and she was an extremely attractive woman. Speaking harshly to someone like her wasn't done lightly). Before he could speak, however, she reached out, stroke the spider's head with the tip of one finger, and it suddenly lurched upright.  
  
Even the stable manager moved with haste to clear out of the way as the thing exited the stall, so Harry didn't feel embarrassed at his own quick scramble to the side. He watched it move, and the precise, slightly jerky movements instantly told him that he'd been (mostly) correct. It wasn't a living creature; it was some manner of magically-animated construct. A clockwork device, fabulously crafted, yet still only a machine. When it came to halt in the center of the room, Eve stepped over and leaned against it in a calculated pose, smiling at him all the while.  
  
"Harry, this is my all-purpose beast of burden. An old acquaintance custom built him for me." She patted the construct fondly on its flank, and the rings on her fingers made a faint metallic chiming sound at the contact. "It wasn't easy to gather up all the parts, especially the power source... but it was worth it in the end." Eve didn't really seem to be speaking to Harry anymore; her soft, musical voice had gone quiet, and cold. "He'll serve me for centuries, maybe even millennia, completely faithful, fetching and carrying and helpless to do anything except obey. And never making any sort of sound, either; never able to speak... and especially never able to sing." She was stroking the spider's metal plating with gentle, almost loving fingers, and when she looked up at Harry again there was both pain, and a quiet, savage satisfaction in that lovely face.  
  
"I call him Lorne."  
  
Harry blinked, unsure of what any of that was supposed to mean. One thing did bother him, though. When he looked into the construct's glassy eyes, they met his for a long moment, then dimmed slightly, and dipped to stare at the floor. A faint chill went through him then, though he quickly managed to shake it off. It was only a robot, a magical creation, after all, much like his own broomstick. That look, as if the thing had been feeling sadness, was all in his imagination.  
  
Obviously there couldn't be any more to it than that.  
  
* * * * *


	3. Chapter Three

_It isn't alive,_  Harry told himself, over and over, as he worked.  _It's only a machine, all gears and springs and wire, like a great, overgrown clock. Just because it_ looks _like a spider that could swallow me down in three bites doesn't mean anything._  
  
The giant mechanical spider that his new friend Eve had introduced as 'Lorne' stood quietly in the center of the stable, as motionless as a stone. The beautiful young woman was watching as Harry tied the dark leather saddlebags in place. He'd volunteered to do it for her, and she'd stepped back to let him have at it, though she did have to give the occasional brief instruction on how to manage the arrangement of straps that held the small packs securely in place. He supposed that the contents of the bags were what she transported as part of her 'import/export' business. If so, then she must not move much in any single trip, since even he, a slight boy of twelve, was able to heave them about quite easily.  
  
After a another minute spent making sure all was secure, he stepped back and ran a hand over his unruly hair.  
  
"All done... I think."  
  
Eve stepped forward gracefully (how  _did_  she manage that, on uneven ground, in 4-inch stiletto heels?) and gave the arrangement a single quick look, then smiled down at him.  
  
"That's perfect. Thank you, Harry."  
  
He felt like he must be glowing; praise of any kind was still something that seemed foreign and strange. Still, he tried to play it off as nothing, with a shrug and a quick look away.  
  
"Not a problem," he mumbled. "It's kind of a reflex by now, I guess, what with the Dursleys making me do everything for them all the time."  
  
Eve had already turned away, and with a snap of her manicured fingers the clockwork spider lurched into motion, following her towards the doors that led out into the street. Even so, when Harry joined her there, the woman cocked her head and regarded him curiously.  
  
"Hm? What is a 'Dursley', and what exactly does it make you do?"  
  
Harry looked away again, and shook his head emphatically. He didn't want to bother the woman with his problems, and besides, he was away from his aunt, his uncle, and his cousin for a whole school year. It seemed a shame to waste any of his Dursley-free time thinking about them.  
  
"Nothing," he said out loud. "They're nothing." She regarded him with deep green eyes a shade lighter than his own, obviously aware that it was somewhat more than 'nothing', and yet willing to let him keep his secrets.  
  
"All right," she told him, then gestured up the impossible street. "My first customer is up this way."  
  
Knock-turn Alley had, of course, gotten wider, cleaner, and altogether less shabby and smelly even before they'd reached the stables. As they walked up what had become Nocturne Way, however, the differences became even more pronounced. The sky overhead continued to hold in what seemed like late twilight, the slowly shifting clouds forming towers and canyons of softly gleaming scarlet, orange and purple. The dim light was augmented by the pale magefire burning atop the lamp posts that lined the street. The buildings fronting the avenue ranged from smallish shops of plain wood, to structures that towered three, four, or even five stories high, and were constructed from brightly-patterned brick, or smooth stone blocks of massive size.  
  
And then there were the crowds.  
  
Men and women in wizard robes were the least of them. There were ordinary people dressed in what looked like Muggle clothing, there were very strange-looking people dressed in garb that ranged from slightly ragged peasant smocks to some that seemed to be seamless outfits of shining, liquid metal. A large, dangerous-looking man passed quite close by Harry, and it was obvious that both his arms and at least one leg were mechanical; the exposed metal struts and wires proved it, even though their movement was as fluid and natural as anything made of flesh and blood. Across the way, he saw an elf-like being that was at least seven feet tall, with blue skin, long green hair, and four arms, all of which were strapped about with compact metallic devices that looked very much like weapons. He was arguing spiritedly with someone only slightly shorter, though much more human-looking. The second man sported a mohawk, and his bare, muscled chest was covered with dozens of elaborate tattoos. The paired swords he wore belted at his waist looked ominously well-used.  
  
"Here we are."  
  
Eve's voice pulled his attention away from the passersby, and Harry looked around. The entrance before them was on the plain side; the smallish window beside it held ranks of dusty potion bottles that looked like they hadn't been disturbed for years. The woman had moved to one of the saddlebags strapped to her spider-shaped servant, and after unlacing the flap she retrieved a largish, square-sided jar of dark glass from within it. Glancing at Harry, she nodded towards the door.  
  
"You can come in if you like. I'm just dropping this off; it should only take a minute."  
  
He nodded, hurried forward to get the door for her when he noticed that she was using both hands to carry the large glass container, and moving very carefully, as if the contents were very valuable... or very volatile.  
  
"Thank you, Harry," she murmured as she stepped past him, and he followed her inside. The interior was small and cramped, the inside of the shop filled nearly to bursting with shelves and shelves and shelves of carefully labeled and arranged potion bottles. Eve set the jar down on the wooden counter with exquisite care, and an older woman emerged from a curtained doorway to greet her.  
  
Harry listened to them as he peered at various exotic potions; many of them he'd never heard of, and he wondered if they were strictly legal. 'Righteous Anger' didn't sound too bad, but 'Death's Shroud: Lvl III, Insinuative' seemed a little less savory.   
  
"--exactly as promised, and promptly delivered, as always," the shopkeeper was saying. "I'll contact you in the usual way, when I've another order."  
  
"That's fine, Clare," Eve answered. "And my payment?"  
  
"Of course. Just a moment... all right, now."  
  
Harry turned his head at that, idly curious as to how large a stack of Galleons the beautiful woman would receive for the delivery. What he saw, however, was not quite what he'd been expecting. The shopkeeper had her wand in hand, though not pointing at anything in particular, and she'd leaned forward across the counter. Eve leaned forward as well, and their lips met in a kiss.  
  
The boy stared, stunned, as this was something he'd never before seen in his entire life. The kiss lasted only a few moments, then the older woman pulled away, and waited expectantly. For her part, Eve remained motionless for nearly half a minute, her eyes still closed and her lips slightly parted. When she finally moved once more, she opened her eyes and gave the shopkeeper a small smile.  
  
"That should work just fine," she told her client. "Until next time."  
  
With that, she turned, nodded to Harry, and strolled back out into the street. His consternation wasn't helped by the cool look the lady behind the counter sent his way, and he hurried out to rejoin Eve. They found an odd scene awaiting them in the street; Lorne was standing with one long, metallic leg holding a small goblin pinned to the ground, while another one danced around with a small dagger, making threatening gestures towards the giant spider. Eve looked down at the creature on the ground without sympathy, and shook her glossy, dark red hair back in a gesture of impatience.  
  
"You little idiots should know better by now; do  _not_  try to take things that don't belong to you. Especially when those things are attached to a golem with a really good anti-theft system installed." She tapped a single long nail once on the clockwork spider's head, and it obediently lifted its leg and freed the goblin. It scrambled to its feet, joined its companion, and together they jabbered at the woman in gobbledygook, the goblin language. Eve's response was to lift one hand and purse her lips, as if she were about to blow them a kiss.   
  
Instantly the two little humanoids squealed, whirled, and pelted away down the street as quickly as their floppy feet could carry them. The woman sighed, shook her head again, and retied the flap on the saddlebag. Harry, whose hand had instinctively sought his wand, was hugely relieved that it hadn't come to actual violence. The offensive spell repertoire of someone who hadn't yet begun their second year at Hogwarts was, of course, vanishingly small.  
  
"What if he'd attacked you?" he asked, tucking his wand safely back into his robes. Eve glanced over at him, gave a little shrug, and tapped the giant spider again with her fingernail.  
  
"Lorne can handle a goblin or two without any problem." She smiled then, a bit nastily, and her pale hand caressed the metal of the golem's thorax. "Not that he would protect me if he had any say in the matter; that's where the programming comes in."  
  
Harry frowned at that, diverted for the moment from the whole woman-kissing-woman incident that he'd also been meaning to ask her about.  
  
"You mean he... doesn't like you?" A glance at the clockwork arachnid showed that it was standing motionless, as was usual when it wasn't obediently following its mistress. "It's a thing, isn't it? Just magic and metal? How can it not like you?"  
  
Eve regarded him with those beautiful, perfectly made-up eyes, and then turned a colder gaze upon the spider.  
  
"You'd be surprised, Harry, at how much personality a 'thing' can have. This one, for example, used to get its jollies from terrorizing helpless women. A little intimidation, a backhand or two to her face; he might have thought that was a dandy way to pass an evening. Add a little cold-blooded murder on the side, and you've got someone who deserved everything he finally ended up getting." Her lips curled into a snarl for just a moment before relaxing once more.  
  
"Enough about that. I've got some more people to see. If we're lucky, we should be finished in time for lunch, and I promise you you'll love the food here."  
  
He nodded, still watching the spider warily, unsure of exactly what the history was between Eve and the clockwork creature, but certain that it wasn't a pleasant one. From the corner of his eye he caught an odd movement, and he turned his head to look. Across the way, on the other side of a group of small, furry-footed children, he saw a man and a woman in black and grey staring straight back at him. Squinting, he tried to see if they were wearing the same armor as the man he'd spotted earlier, outside the stable.  
  
"Eve," he ventured, looking over at her. "I broke my glasses earlier; is there any way you could mend them for me?"  
  
The beautiful woman was already directing her pack spider along the side of the street, but she glanced back with a regretful look.  
  
"Sorry, sweetie; I can't do that spell." Harry blinked in surprise: it wasn't a complex piece of magic, and he'd been sure that any adult Witch would be able to manage it easily. She further surprised him a moment later, however, when she added: "Actually, I can't cast any spells at all." She cocked one eyebrow at him in a decidedly odd look, and he had the strangest feeling that she was amused at something. For his part, he was a bit stunned.  
  
"No spells at all?" he asked incredulously. Given her easy familiarity with Diagon Alley and Nocturne Way, he'd just assumed.... "You mean--you're a  _muggle_?"  
  
Of course, after he'd blurted it out that way he found himself flushing deeply in shame. Of all the unforgivably rude things to say--  
  
"A muggle?" Eve repeated, her nose crinkling ever-so-slightly as she did so. Taking a moment to consider the word, she smiled a secret sort of smile and shook her head.  
  
"No, not a muggle," she told him, laughter lurking behind the words. "Not a wizard or witch, no, but definitely not a muggle, either." She pointed at another, larger structure a short distance up the street. "There's our next stop, right there." She led the way, and Harry, finally remembering the two people who might or might not have been spying on them, turned again to look.  
  
They were gone. The man and woman in black and grey were gone, and he didn't see them anywhere in the street, no matter how he squinted or craned his head. With a gnawing feeling of unease slowly growing stronger in his middle, he hurried after the woman and the spider.  
  
  
  
* * * * *


	4. Chapter 4

The one thing he hadn't expected to see for sale here, in the intensely-magical avenue just off Diagon Alley, was electronics. And yet, here they were. Eve's second client specialized in electronic devices, though they weren't the sort that he was familiar with from the Dursley's home. These were either mostly-featureless boxes with dozens of input cable connections lining the back, or strangely-angular affairs with several small viewscreens built into them, and many colored lights and buttons forming intricate designs that made no sense at all.  
  
Harry glanced around as Eve watched the establishment's proprietor raise the overhead door that gave access to the rear of the building. The owner was another woman, though he wasn't quite certain that this was a standard human. She was tiny, for one thing, not even close to reaching five feet in height, and skinny in proportion. Her feet were encased in a set of workboots that looked to have been made for someone three times her size, and a variety of odd-looking tools hung from the leather belt fastened around her almost non-existent waist. Huge, pale-grey eyes, and masses of dead-straight, light-brown hair would have made her look even more childlike, if her small features hadn't been set in an expression of perpetual annoyance.  
  
"You were able to get them without any problem?" she was asking Eve for the third time in less than a minute. "I wasn't able to find any myself; not the A-300's, anyway, and that's what I need. The two-fifty-eights are all over the place, but those won't do me any good." She looked sharply at the taller woman. "You didn't get me two-fifty-eights by mistake did you? 'Cause that won't do me any good. I need the A-300's, or nothing at all."  
  
Eve made placating gestures with her soft, white hands, and flashed the owner a reassuring smile.  
  
"Relax, Daisha. I got exactly what you asked for. There were no problems, everything is fine, see for yourself."  
  
The large door had risen high enough to show the looming shape of Lorne standing in the narrow alley behind the building. Eve crooked one finger and the clockwork creature moved forward into the cleared space at the center of the large room, turned in place, and then froze once more. Harry, who had been walking around and peering at the various objects (being very careful to touch nothing) came to the sudden realization that some of what he was seeing  _did_  look vaguely familiar. The blocky objects with the many cables in back might well be computer servers, like he'd seen once or twice in the muggle school he'd attended before Hogwart's. The complex devices with the buttons, switches, lights and viewscreens strongly resembled the controls of an aircraft, though the only ones he'd ever seen that were quite that complicated had been on the military jets featured in various action movies.  
  
The boy frowned, wondering why someone in the wizarding world might need computer mainframes, or military-grade electronics.  
  
"--And you really didn't have any trouble getting these out?" the short woman, Daisha, was asking yet again from behind him. "The government there  _doesn't_  let anything with this security level out of their sight... which, you know, is the reason I want them."  
  
"Finding people who are willing to bend the rules is my specialty; you should know that by now." Eve's voice was sleek and self-satisfied as she continued. "I can get anything, for anyone, anytime, so long as they're willing to pay my price; that's what it says on the business cards... which I might actually get printed up, if things keep working out this well for me."  
  
Harry turned around, saw that she had unlaced another of the pack-spider's saddlebags, and was withdrawing a rectangular block of crystal from inside. It was about the size of a paperback book, though from the way she held it he guessed that it was heavier than it looked. Daisha crowded forward eagerly, took the object, and hurried over to where a workbench crowded with various bits of strange apparatus stood against the wall. Inserting the crystal block into a slot apparently designed to receive it, she turned and put her eyes to some kind of viewer, her hands making delicate manipulations to the instrument as she peered through it. Eve turned her head to look at Harry, and gave him an impish smile.  
  
"She doesn't trust me much," she stage whispered, nodding towards the other woman.   
  
"She doesn't trust anyone much," came the reply from the workbench, and then Daisha raised her head from the viewer. "In this case, however, it seems that everyone is on the level." Her small face broke into a toothy grin, and she all but danced about in excitement. "An A-300 Liquid Crystal computer heart, just as you promised." She frowned, eyeing the smallish packs atop the spider uncertainly. "You did say you had the full consignment? A thousand units?"  
  
Eve nodded.  
  
"One thousand exactly, as promised." She started to pull the saddlebag open again, but Harry stepped forward.  
  
"Here, I'll get it." She gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. "Just trying to be useful. I'd rather do something than stand around, you know?" More of the Dursley conditioning, he figured, though she in no way actually reminded him of his relatives. Perhaps it was more a kind of chivalry on his part; Eve, with her slim build, soft hands and perfect nails, didn't seem like someone who was accustomed to manual labor, and it only seemed natural to offer to take her place. For her part the woman seemed a little surprised, but she didn't argue. Moving back out of his way, she sent him an appreciative little smile that made her jade-green eyes sparkle, and caused his ears to flush red with embarrassment, and other, less easily-identifiable feelings.  
  
The crystal blocks turned out to be very heavy indeed; several times heavier than he would have thought from looking at them. Daisha pulled a flat metal pallet across the stone floor, and positioned it next to the spider so that he didn't have to carry them more than a couple of steps. Even so, it was hard work, and he soon started sweating, and breathing a little heavily as he withdrew the blocks from the saddlebag and transferred them to the pallet, stacking them carefully so none of them would be damaged.   
  
It immediately became apparent that Lorne's saddlebags were charmed so that their insides were larger than their outsides. After pulling out a hundred of the heavy crystals, the medium-sized pouch seemed nearly as full as when he'd started. Every so often as he worked, Daisha would intercept his hands, take one of the blocks from him, and carry it over to test it at her workbench. Eve seemed to take this in stride, leaning gracefully against the metal spider on the side opposite Harry, from which vantage she watched as he worked to empty the saddlebag. The way her eyes followed his every movement made him nervous, and he had to pay extra-close attention to what he was doing, lest he accidentally drop one of the slippery crystals. He actually welcomed the concentration the task required, it gave him an excuse to keep his eyes down, and not meet that unsettling gaze.  
  
 _She's not just beautiful,_  he realized suddenly, when the first impossibly-large pocket was finally emptied and Eve was untying the next in line.  _She's the most beautiful woman I've ever met._  
  
And it was true. His horse-faced aunt was certainly no beauty, and although he'd never consciously considered it before, Hogwarts seemed strangely bereft of attractive women. Every single female on the school's staff was either painfully plain, or well on in years. Some of the sixth and seventh year female students were pretty enough, of course, but none of them matched the woman who stood watching him.  
  
At least, he couldn't think of any girl who did, not with those jade eyes resting on him with an almost tangible weight.  
  
Twenty minutes later he had finished unloading the delivery, and the crystal blocks on the pallet were stacked nearly as high as his waist--all of this from three leather pouches that looked hardly large enough to hold a loaf of bread. Harry wiped his face with his shirt sleeve, still feeling the weight of every block in his weary back. He stretched hugely, turned to check that the flaps on the spider's packs were tied, and came face to face with Eve. She'd bent down the few inches required to put them on the same level, and now she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek that left his eyes hugely wide.  
  
She giggled at his stunned look, the sound much more girlish and much less intimidating than her usual silvery laughter. Schooling her features to seriousness only with great difficulty, she regarded him with sparking eyes.  
  
"You're making me feel guilty, Harry, working so hard when I'm supposed to be showing you the sights." She doubled his shock by kissing him on the other cheek as well. "Thank you again," she said, stepping back a pace. "I promise, that's the last of the heavy lifting. The rest of what I have to pick up and drop off is all lightweight packages, messages, things like that. And we will get around to some sightseeing, I promise."  
  
With that she turned and moved over to where Daisha was happily unplugging the last block from her testing devices, leaving Harry to touch his fingers to his cheek with expression of wonder. Twelve years old was very young, true, but not so young that he was immune to feminine beauty and charm, and he found himself falling headlong into a crush of truly epic proportions.   
  
And, since he was staring after Eve anyway, he found himself watching closely as she concluded her business with the smaller woman, wondering if she would again take her payment in the form of a single, inexplicable kiss. He wasn't sure how someone could possibly make a living like that, though he supposed that if that was the way of things then at least Daisha was fairly attractive. Very short, slightly odd-looking, but not even close to being ugly.   
  
It was therefore unexpected when, without any hint that kissing had even been considered, the tiny woman pulled a large strongbox out from underneath her workbench, opened it by entering a long string of numbers on a keypad, and then extracted several bags of clinking coins. Eve made a point of doing her own verification this time, opening each bag, upending it over a clear spot on the table, and counting quickly through the gleaming gold before replacing it and retying them securely. It took a few minutes, as it amounted to a very large amount of gold. In the end, both women seemed satisfied, and with a promise of getting touch soon, they parted ways. The overhead door was raised again, and after the bags of coins were stowed safely in the same pockets that had held the blocks, she led the way back outside.  
  
  
  
* * * * *  
  
  
  
When they reached it, Nocturne Way remained the same as it had been. The seemingly never-ending twilight still held, the crowds of humans and not-humans still thronged the shops, and Harry still had more questions than answers.  
  
"I didn't know machines like that could work here," he told Eve. "I mean, magical ones, like--" he cautiously rapped a knuckle on Lorne's metallic skin. "Like this, yeah, but computers? And the lights in there were electric! Plus those other things, those analyzers or whatever, those were electrical too." The woman nodded in response, though she seemed more occupied with searching the street and storefronts for something than with his question.  
  
"Daisha isn't a witch, and she doesn't much like any kind of magic. Her talent is with machines, especially with combining different kinds of technology from different worlds, or different timelines." She glanced at him, quirked her lips to the side in a half-smile, and gave him an elaborate shrug. "I don't understand how she does what she does. All I know is, she can make things work that don't have any business working, and certain people are willing to pay her completely insane amounts of money for what she can build for them."  
  
"And getting parts and bits for her from other places, that's what you do?"  
  
She'd apparently found what she was looking for, and guided them into a narrow turning off to the left of the main street.  
  
"That's what I do," she said, her voice echoing strangely in the narrow passage. It soon opened out into a large courtyard, with doors and windows of different buildings opening onto it, and two other passages leading off in different directions. Harry looked around with interest; there seemed to be quite a bit more to this area than just a single street, like Diagon Alley. This seemed more like entire neighborhoods, or the different districts of a smallish town. He wondered in passing if what he'd heard about Hogsmeade being the only real all-wizarding settlement in Britain was entirely true, though of course there were obviously many people and creatures here besides the human Wizard and Witch population, so maybe Nocturne was disqualified on that count.  
  
While he was lost in his musings, Eve had parked her spider in place, and was busily rummaging through another of the saddlebags. In short order she located several bulky envelopes, each of which was marked with what looked very much like postage addresses. Walking to one of the buildings that fronted onto the courtyard, she climbed the short flight of steps and tapped at the door. As Harry watched, a man with dark skin and darker hair answered, and broke into a wide smile when he saw the young woman standing there. They spoke for a few moments, then she handed him the letters, and he seemed very happy to have received them.  
  
"A moment, a moment," he distinctly heard the man say to her. "Let me get my wand." Harry, unobserved for the time being, drifted closer to the foot of the steps, watching curiously. When the man returned, carrying his wand ready in one hand, he asked Eve something, too quietly for the boy to overhear. She answered, he nodded, and then they kissed.  
  
Harry's eyes widened; not just with jealousy (though a pang of something suspiciously akin to jealousy did indeed strike him at the sight), but also because of what he glimpsed. Somehow, maybe through some trick of the light, he seemed to catch sight of something passing between the man and the woman. A ripple, a distortion, a... pulse, of something, moved from him to her, as much felt as seen. Harry blinked, not completely sure he had seen it at all. Adding to the strangeness was the fact that the kiss ended as quickly as it had begun, and the two seemed not to think it had been anything too terribly important. They smiled at each other, they were friendly enough, and yet it didn't  _feel_  like an expression of romantic interest, any more than the kiss between Eve and the female Potions merchant had felt like more than some kind of transaction between two businesspeople. The man spoke a few final words, she laughed briefly, and then she started back down the steps.  
  
"I am  _sooo_  glad he didn't have any return mail this time around," she told him when she reached the bottom. "His sister lives in Rebma, and the salt water makes a complete mess of my hair every time I have to go down there." She gave her head a deliberate toss, as if to demonstrate the currently perfect condition of that sleek and shiny dark red mane, winked at him, and led the way to the passage on the far side of the courtyard, her high heels clicking on the cobbles.  
  
  
  
* * * * *  
  
  
  
"Time for a break," Eve announced suddenly, and Harry looked up with a guilty start. He'd been staring at the backs of her feet as she led the way down the narrow side-lane, trying to figure out how she managed to not break her ankles as she walked on the cobblestones, much less do it so gracefully, in those heels. At first he'd figured she had some variant on the Sky High Hikers he'd seen earlier; those would let her tread on air just above the street, and give the illusion she was walking normally. The more he watched her, however, the more convinced he became that this wasn't the case. Her shoes really did seem to be making contact with the ground, and besides, he could hear the click each time her heel came down. Somehow, as best he could make out without his glasses, she was actually managing to place the heel of her shoes down exactly atop a cobble with every step. She never seemed to miss, and she never once slipped; all this, which not paying attention to her feet at all. Deciding that this was perhaps the oddest use of magic he'd seen yet (other than the illusionary steps scattered around Hogwarts), he looked up at her as she turned her head to look at him. After a long, considering moment, she pointed to a shop across the way.  
  
"What do you say we take a look around in there?" she asked him, then, without waiting for his answer she headed off, one negligent wave of her hand freezing the pack spider in place when it would have continued to follow her. Harry caught up with the woman as she walked inside, and he looked around in delight as he saw the array of gleaming, shining metal all around.  
  
"Wicked," he breathed, in unwitting imitation of Ron. The shop sold some tools, and some household utensils, all products of the blacksmith's art. The bulk of the shelf space, however, was devoted to weapons. Swords, knives, hammers and maces and spears, all were represented, and many of them had an indefinable something that left him feeling certain that they contained some manner of magic. "Ron will go nutters when I tell him about this," he said aloud, moving to inspect a longsword with faint swirls of blue and green just barely visible in the depths of the shining steel.  
  
"Ron?" Eve asked quietly, moving up behind him and looking at the sword over his shoulder.  
  
"Yeah, he's a friend of mine at Hogwart's. My best friend, actually." He went to the next display, which was a glass case that held an array of knives, large and small, each of them more beautiful than the last. "He won't believe me when I tell him about this." Pausing, he realized the literal truth of that offhand remark. "He really won't," he said, frustration plucking at him. "He won't believe I really saw  _any_  of this!"  
  
Eve's cool hand came to rest on his shoulder, one long nail flicking teasingly at an errant lock of his unruly hair.  
  
"Well then, maybe you should get a souvenir to take back and show him." He looked back at her in surprise, and her jade eyes flicked to the case in front of him. "Go on, pick one."  
  
His gaze whipping from her smiling face, to the knives on display, and then back, he felt a wide grin stretching his face.  
  
"Seriously? Really?!"  
  
"Of course. I've been treating you like slave labor all morning; you deserve more for that than a kiss on the cheek."  
  
Harry turned back to face the knives with considerable haste, hoping to hide the flush that promptly turned him bright red. He very carefully held his tongue: it wouldn't have been at all proper for him to tell her that the kisses had been more than ample payment.  
  
Selecting his knife, he pointed, and the bearded dwarf running the shop promptly retrieved it for him.  
  
  
  
* * * * *  
  
  
  
The knife Harry chose had a very useful enchantment that would simultaneously solve the problem of being able to bring it to Hogwarts. Besides being a beautifully-crafted object, it was spelled to make it magically-sharp, able to cut through absolutely anything... except something alive. That made it a hugely useful tool, and a complete non-threat as a weapon. Given that, he didn't expect any problems with taking it to school, and Ron was absolutely going to kill him when he heard about the adventure he'd had that day.  
  
On the subject of Ron, however, and the rest of the Weasley's....  
  
"I should be getting back," he said, watching her face even though he was mortally afraid he might offend her. Eve had been so nice to him, and she was so beautiful, only....  
  
"I've been gone for hours now," he told her. "I'd been staying with them, these last few days, and they were taking me to get my school things, along with Ron and Ginny and the others. When I didn't get there with them they probably started looking everywhere. They must be frantic by now."  
  
That was an assumption, and not one he was confident in making, after a lifetime of neglect at the hands of his aunt and uncle, but the Weasley's were different. They really did like him, and he was pretty sure they really would be worried. He felt guilty at having spent so long at exploring this place when that was going on--nearly as guilty as he felt at the look on Eve's face.  
  
"There's still a lot to see," she said in a wheedling tone, disappointment lurking in the depths of those exquisite eyes. "I've been so busy with my errands that you've barely seen anything. How about we go check out the docks? Or Kildare's shop; she has things there that make that sword place look sick."  
  
"I really can't," Harry said regretfully. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley will be looking for--"  
  
"At least let me take you somewhere for something to eat," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "I promised you some lunch, and now you're going to make me feel awful if you won't even let me feed you before you head back to the land of the boring, goody-goody, sleepwalking people."  
  
Her entreaty only made him feel worse, and he hadn't thought that was possible.  
  
"I can't," he said again. "Please, can we go back now?"  
  
She looked at him for a long, long, moment, and then nodded, her eyes sad.  
  
"Sure, we can do that." With a sigh so faint that he might have imagined it, she pointed to a turning a short distance away. "It's that way." The two of them began walking, with Lorne bringing up the rear.  
  
A few minutes later as they were crossing another courtyard (this one with a magical, fountain in its center, with glowing images of fantastic beasts cavorting in the spray), he was distracted by a magnificent sight high overhead. A ship, a for-real relic of the age of sail, was lifting into the sky some distance off to the east. Its sails were still in the process of unfurling as he watched, and Harry felt his stomach clench tight at the thought of what it must be like to work in that rigging.  
  
Eve followed his gaze upwards.  
  
"That's from the harbor. There'll be more setting sail soon; the tide is turning."  
  
Fumbling the broken halves of his glasses out of his pocket, Harry held them to his eyes, and saw that there were indeed tiny figures working the sails, with a drop of a thousand feet below them if they slipped but once. The huge expanses of white cloth were fully deployed in a few moments, and he heard the muffled boom as they billowed outwards, filled with wind... or perhaps it was the light of the hidden sun that pulled the canvas taut. He lowered his glasses, and looked at Eve, aghast.  
  
"How can no one be  _seeing_  this?" he demanded. "I should have seen this from Diagon Alley. All of  _London_  should have seen it!" Another thought occurred to him, and his eyes snapped up to peer again at the impossible sight. "Heathrow! The people on the radars must be going insane!"  
  
Another, smaller vessel was visible now, rising from roughly the same area as the first, also in the process of unfurling its sails, and behind it came two more. Eve, however, was giving him a look that held disappointment.  
  
"Come on, Harry, I know you're smarter than that." She glanced upwards, then folded her arms and regarded him with a slightly sideways gaze. "You already know that there are places set apart from the outside world, places where the mundane, non-magical people can't reach. Diagon Alley is one of those places, though it's only barely removed from the 'muggle' world. Your school is like that too, I imagine, and I'm sure it's even further 'away'." She unfolded her arms and gestured widely at the streets and buildings all around them. "This place is like that, only much more so. Once we entered the twilight, we were nearly out the 'normal' world altogether. The mundane planet, the non-magical earth that you're used to, it doesn't have much hold on this place. Just by the fingertips, by the barest bits of its fingernails is it holding on, and keeping all of this from just floating away into dreams and fantasy." She looked up again at the soaring, magical ships, and shook her head slightly. "No, no one outside sees this, except sometimes for half a second, out of the corner of their eye."  
  
They stood together, silently, for a long minute, watching the heartrendingly beautiful sight, before Eve touched him on the arm.  
  
"Didn't you have somewhere you needed to be?"  
  
He nodded, reluctantly.  
  
"Yeah, I do."  
  
She led the way to another passageway, this time on the right side of the courtyard. It was smaller than the last one, and he looked back to see that Lorne had to pull his eight metal legs in close in order to fit.  
  
"Have you ever been up in one of those?" he asked the woman walking beside him.   
  
"Of course I have. How else do you think I got here?" It was dim in the passageway; most of the light came from the magefire lamps scattered here and there, though he could see that ahead of them the passage opened back into the brightness of the main street. "Those ships sail between worlds, Harry," she told him. "There are other ways to get there, obviously, but the ships are fastest, and go to the furthest places you could ever imagine."  
  
He was still processing what she'd said.  
  
"How you... got here?" He looked at her, her lovely face barely visible in the dimness. The passage was long, and he had to walk carefully to keep from stumbling over something unseen. "You mean you're not... from... here?"  
  
"Nope. It's not that different, though, at least not on the surface. The... what you would call the 'muggle' world is nearly the same, at least. Our magical world is different from yours in quite a few ways." They were nearly back to the street, and the light grew bright enough for him to see the ground more clearly, for which he was grateful.  
  
"Different how?" he asked, wishing he had more time to talk with this fascinating person before going off to do something as stupid as buying school supplies. It had been enough to fascinate him, her being clever and kind and, well, beautiful, but adding in the part where she was from another  _world--!_  
  
"As far as I can tell, you don't have a Vampire Slayer here," she said, ticking it off on one finger. "Since you barely have any vampires, I suppose that makes sense. The magical people on my world don't use the word 'muggle'," another item ticked off on her fingers. "The Wizards don't need wands to cast spells--at least I've never seen any of them use one--and...." She sighed again, and this one was both clearly audible, and clearly heartfelt.  
  
"And none of them have ever heard of Harry Potter, the-boy-that-lived."  
  
They reached the end of the passage at that exact moment, and he saw that it wasn't the main street at all. Instead of Nocturne Way, he saw another courtyard, this one very small, though brightly lit with many magical lights. It was nearly deserted, and the handful of people there ignored the newcomers completely. At that point what she'd said fully registered, and his head snapped around.  
  
"I never told you my last--!"  
  
Eve's hand was already raised, her lips already pursed, and before he could even think to pull away or reach for his wand, she blew him a kiss.   
  
Something invisible hit him, something that sent him stumbling backwards to sprawl helplessly on the ground, every inch of his body numb yet faintly tingling, as if he'd somehow managed to lay far enough wrong as to put every part of him asleep. His mind was still frantically alert, however, he simply couldn't force anything to move, not even a finger. Eve stepped into view, her jade eyes sad as she tucked a stray length of glossy hair back behind her ear.  
  
"Oh, sweetie, don't you know?" She made a summoning gesture behind her, though her gaze never left his. "You should never,  _never_ trust pretty girls you meet in scary places. They always end up being more trouble than you can handle."  
  
The giant metallic spider loomed behind her, and when she pointed down at Harry's helpless form, it reached for him with cruel, barbed claws.  
  
  
  
* * * * *  



End file.
